Negotiating with Bill Belichick sounds uncomfortable.
The New England Patriots coach is notorious for getting a good deal when signing players to contracts. He gets his own players to take hometown discounts and, often, Belichick can convince out-of-house free agents to sign below their market value, because they get the opportunity to play for the Patriots, who are almost always in play for a Super Bowl. Having quarterback Tom Brady doesn’t hurt either.
Former Patriots linebackers Ted Johnson shared his experience about talking contracts with Belichick on NBC Sports Boston’s “Arbella Early Edition.”
“When I first was being coached by Bill and had my first kind of issue with my contract, Bill reached out to me personally which usually does not happen. I was like, ‘Woah, OK, I have an agent.’ He was like, ‘Yeah I was going to call him.’
“He wanted to gauge my interest and see how I reacted by him calling me. Bill will nickel and dime. There was a year that I had — I played 15 percent of the plays the year before, and he came to ask me for a pay cut. He said, ‘Well Ted, you only played 15 percent of the plays.’ ‘Yeah, Bill, did you know I broke my foot in Week 1 so I missed the next 10 games?’
“He doesn’t care about that stuff. So it is hardball, he doesn’t care, he will use the stats against you, and won’t factor in all the things that went into those poor stats. He’s not going to blow you away with an offer. He’s going to make you sweat it out and make you think, ‘Do I really want to leave what I’m comfortable with, or stay here and take less than what other people would offer?’”
That’s what Brady is managing.
Brady has always taken pay cuts to accommodate the Patriots’ needs. When New England needs to free up cap space, they generally restructure Brady’s deal. When the Patriots are signing Brady to an extension, his contract hasn’t typically fallen among the highest-paid players at his position. It seems, however, Brady is interested in getting more leverage this offseason when he’ll be an unrestricted free agent, and is reportedly ready to test the free agency market. Johnson offered his thoughts on Brady’s situation.
“And that may be the case here with Tom [Brady] where pride can get in the way. And so with Bill, he’s an emotionless machine, man. That was the kind of feeling I got from him that he takes emotion out of it and that’s why he’s as good as he is.”
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